[11] Mind health and internal control – Broken Window Theory

Mind health means a condition of mental health (including motivation, etc.). As we mentioned in the 2nd “Relationship between mind health and risk management” of the series, mental illness leads to internal control issues.

Individual sickness leads to organizational sickness

Mental illness leads to reduction of concentration, attention, and motivation. Initially, these issues are treated as individual issues, but colleagues follow up on a person who is mental illness for a long time, the colleagues will be exhausted, and gradually some of the colleagues will have mental illness. If this situation continues, frustration will increase and lead to increasing risk that people with mental illness increase.

Overlooking minor incidents

As people with mental illness increase, some mistakes and accidents will not become issues due to busy schedule. Many employees do not have enough time to pay attention to the workplace and consider near misses deeply.

Stealth moral fall

If no one cares about a minor incident, no one will take a little big accident or mistake seriously. This low interest in the surroundings can lead to small frauds at first, which can eventually lead to larger frauds.

The triggering of such incidents is widely known as a theory of criminology that “if a broken window is left, other windows will be broken.”. This can be similarly considered in internal control.

Broken window theory

No one run a full marathon like 100m sprint

As people with mental illness increase, works will be concentrated on healthy people. At first, there is no problem, but eventually healthy people will reach their limits. If that happens, they are given into temptation such as “A little cheat is no problem.” and in most cases, it leads to a serious incident.